Conversations with Argonians
by Scarabbug
Summary: Flash and Kara have a chat in the Watchtower, despite Kara’s obvious reluctance. [One shot. Spoilers for “Divided We Fall”.]


**Flash and Kara have a chat in the Watchtower, despite Kara's obvious reluctance. One shot. Spoilers for "Divided We Fall". **

**One of these days I swear, I'll write a fic that has some actually _plot_ and content. Upon which date, the anti-life equation will be wreaked upon all civilisation and superman will kill the president. **

**The next story should have some actual _plot_, anyway, now that I've gotten all this out of my system. (Watch out, Mister President.)**

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

**

* * *

**

Conversations with Argonians About Argon. 

'Do you go weird around Argon?'

Kara blinks.

It's _just_ like the Flash to come out of nowhere and ask such a ridiculous question as that but it's still… kind of surprising, all the same. She'd just been in the middle of a really good _mope_, (she'd been resting her chin on the tabletop and toying with her drink's straw and everything... heck even superheroes are allowed to mope sometimes, damn it) but the Flash's unexpected arrival totally _bewilders_ her out of it. Whatever sensible response she could have given is reduced to mulch at the sight of a speedster appearing out of nowhere in front of her.

…Minus his costume, actually and Kara has no idea when he decided to go this public with his identity but… well, there _are_ only seven or so people in the Tower right now, and only four of them are in the room. Vixen and Gypsy are having a quiet conversation in the corner. Unlike the Flash, they had the sense to know that Kara wants to be left alone. Where Flash is concerned she has no such luck.

She's _never_ going to get used to him doing that. Period.

Anyway the answer she does finally come up with for him is: '…The heck, Wally?'

'You know, Argon. The element? It's under Kryptonite in the periodic table, and according to those handy little League files Batman has stored on the central computer, your home planet was related to that element. I did the math, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen you act funny around _fire extinguishers_.'

Kara doesn't answer for a second. A very long, very uneasy second. Actually, she's still stuck way back at what he said about the periodic table and…

…And since when the heck did _Wally_ know about those kinds of things, anyway?

'I… no, I wouldn't. I don't think it quite works the same way, Wa— wait, Batman has me on _file_? Seriously?'

Flash make a quiet snorting noise and Kara suddenly realised how ridiculous that question is. Of _course_ the Batman has her on file. Batman has _everyone_ on file. He's _Batman_ and he's creepy like that. Kara has no doubting whatsoever that he probably has a complete listing of every single League member's battle tactics, strengths and weaknesses, including handy little post it notes and highlighted areas of text detailing how best to take each of them out in a fight, should they ever turn evil and try to wreck the world, or… something.

'And… and one of Batman's files told you that Argon might be poisonous to me?'

'Nah, I worked that bit out myself. Batman's not _that_ weird… I think,' Wally looks a trifle worried for a moment. '…Actually he probably is. Scratch that –he _definitely_ is… But, yeah that stuff wasn't on these files, anyway. All-member access, you know?'

'Uh-huh, and you've been studying all of this… stuff? On the watchtower computers?' She thought she'd be safe with Wally at least, (_everybody_ felt safe with Wally. Wally was just that kind of guy. Heck, he acted pally around _Batman_ for goodness sakes).

'Studied a lot of it in criminology, actually. Always _hated_ the chemistry tutor… The guy could completely suck the fun out of a fingerprint analysis. But I was bored today.'

_So what're you _doing_ at the Watchtower, Fleetfoot?_ Kara thinks, and doesn't realise she's thinking of him in nicknames until it's too late. Wonderful. Now she _knows_ she's stuck with him. Probably for the rest of her _life. _'Bored. Right,' she sighs, and settles her chin back into its nice, comfortable spot on the table. 'That makes two of us. Can we be bored in some way which _doesn't_ involve us talking about which elements are most likely to kill me?'

'Sure, why not. What else do you wanna talk about?'

_Nothing_ Kara thinks, bluntly, but aloud she mutters, 'I dunno… what about you, what's _your_ weakness anyway?'

'What, she says she doesn't wanna talk about weaknesses, and then she starts asking me about mine?'

'_She_ is not in the mood for round robins, Wally.'

'A round what now? What does Batman's sidekick have to do with anything?'

Kara sniggers in spite of herself. Yeah. _That's_ more like the Wally she knows. None of this quoting the periodic table and fingerprint analyses class crap he's been giving her for the last ten minutes (has it really been that long? Talking to Wally, ironically enough, can often make time feel like it's going a whole lot slower than usual).

Kara shrugs her shoulders as best as she can without actually lifting her head from the counter. 'It's something Ma Kent says to me, sometimes. It's a term for one of those conversations that goes on forever without any real point. That's how she uses it, anyway.'

'That's a weird saying. Must be country talk.'

'I have no idea, Wally.'

'…Man, you're really ticked off today, aren't ya? What's eating you?'

'Stargirl stole my shift, that's what,' Kara mutters, the annoyance towards evident in her tone.

'She stole it?' She thinks he might be raising his eyebrow at her but she doesn't bother opening her eyes to find out for sure. Besides _he_ can't talk about pulling weird faces. 'You can do that?'

'Yeah, you can and she did. That rotten, lousy…' the insults die on her tongue because she doesn't actually _want_ to call Stargirl anything worse than that. She's not that angry.

Wally scratches his head. sy, good for nothing... female whims. e look on his face in response to that question. as visitng her aunt in...'I thought Stargirl was your friend.'

'She _is_ but that doesn't mean I have to _like_ her,' Kara has to open her eyes at that point, just to see the look on his face. His expression is understandably confused. 'Its girl stuff, Wally. You wouldn't understand.'

'Hey, I'll have you know I'm well keyed up on the subtle nature of female whims.'

Kara smiles. 'Oh yeah? Then why don't you have a girlfriend?'

'I so have a girlfriend.'

'Oh, really? What's her name?'

'Linda. Linda Park,' Wally says, confidently and far too quickly for Kara to think he's lying. Then again Wally _can _operate at beyond the speed of sound, so for all Kara knows he might have just hesitated for a whole subjective half-hour trying to come up with a good name for a non-existent girlfriend.

Except that the Flash really _isn't_ that rediculous.

'Why don't you bring her here sometime?'

'Can't. She doesn't know about… the spandex thing. Not yet. But she will, as soon as I can ascertain that she isn't gonna freak out at me over it… she probably won't. She's got a real thing about the Flash,' he gives her a wink which is not-at-_all_ quixotic, even though it's probably supposed to be.

'Oh…' Kara can understand that. One of the bad things about being a superhero (and there aren't really _that_ many bad things about it) is not being able to tell your friends. Family can handle it (they _have_ to), and the general community doesn't even know you beyond your public image, but… working out who to tell and _when_ to tell them… that's harder. Especially where (potential) boyfriends are concerned.

Wally has used the time in which she was thinking about boyfriends (all four seconds of it) to get himself an iced mocha. She tactfully avoids looking at the obscene amounts of cream he's piled on the top. Sure, give _him_ the hyper-accelerated metabolism.

So Stargirl has her shift, the professor at class in Smallville _still_ has her cell-phone and Wally has the kind of coffee she can only drink once a month if she doesn't want her hips to turn into jelly. Some people have all the luck.

'So,' Wally says through his mocha. 'Stargirl stole your shift, huh?'

'Yeah,' Kara mutters. 'The Friday night one. I _always_ do the Friday night shift, it's about as million times preferable to any other, and it leaves the entire weekend free, but Courtney was visiting her aunt in… in Louisiana or somewhere like that today, so _I_ got lumped with the Saturday shift because _she_ stole the one I always take.' Kara gives the straw in her drink a prod causing it to jump out of the glass and fly across the room. Kara doesn't know her own strength, sometimes.

'…Yeah. Remind me never to do that to you.'

Kara turns her face towards the tabletop. 'I won't _need_ to remind you, Wally, because you'll see the death glares coming –believe me, that can be quite literal – a mile away if you even _glance_ at it on the sign-up board.'

Then there's a light thumping sound on the table besides her. So light in fact, that most people probably wouldn't hear or feel it, but Supergirl isn't _most_ people. She opens her eyes.

Wally has his head resting on the tabletop right next to hers, and is looking at her sideways, smiling a rather goofy smile. It's amusing enough that she can't help give him a genuine smile back.

It's still strange, seeing him without the cowl. She remembers the first time she saw him and how the first thing that she did in response was think: "_Ha! Total red head – I knew it!_" Like the Flash was ever going to be a _brunette_).

It must be his day off, or something. Which begs the question –_what_ is he doing at the Watchtower and _why_ is he discussing elements with her? She'd rather be _anywhere_ but here right now. Not that Kara doesn't enjoy saving the world (when the world actually _needs_ saving, which doesn't happen as often as you'd really expect it to) but Saturdays were _created_ for people her age and she doesn't want to spend hers on emergency call-out duty anymore than she wants to entertain Wally's thoughts about the periodic table.

'Food,' Wally says, after a second.

'…What now?'

'My weakness, you asked me what it was, right? That's it. Food.'

'Yeah, Wally, I think I'd figured that,' Kara laughs a little to herself, then she notices Wally's stopped grinning… He's not _frowning_ really, but he's not joking with her either. 'You're not kidding?'

'Nope. Hey, _you've_ seen me eat.'

'Yes, the mental image of watching you is burned into the same part of my brain where the bad dreams and algebra homework live.'

'Hey, I resent that! Anyway, you think I inhale _all_ that stuff for the heck of it? I totally don't. S'cept maybe for the hotdogs. Kinda hard to dislike those hotdogs.'

Kara's… never actually realised this before, but now it hits her at the same second as Wally gets that dreamy look in his eyes thinking about the hotdogs, or whatever.

_Hyper-accelerated metabolism_, he called it. Sure, she knew what all of that _meant_ but she'd never actually _thought_ about it and…

'Holy Rao, Wally, your grocery bills must be huge.'

Flash sniggers. 'Yeah. S'cept on a Thursday. Then I eat up here.'

…Yeah. Kara thinks that explains _so_ much about the usual Thursday menu selection in the canteen and why she can never get a decent sandwich.

'Seriously, Kara, you're looking at me as if I just told you I've got something terminal. And the only terminal thing I have is a case of being extremely good looking… which is absolutely no threat to you, I swear. You have super-immunity in every sense of the word.'

Kara's sigh is damn near instinctive. 'You're crazy, Wally. Nobody wants to spend their Saturdays up here. And do you realise you're gonna give yourself a coronary with all that junk?'

'Nah, it doesn't work that way. You know all varieties of fat actually have really high energy content? Most of it just doesn't burn the right way. Fat doesn't stick with me, 'cause anything and everything which can possibly be burned up and turned into kinetic energy _is_ turned into it. Almost everything, anyway.'

…Damn it, there he goes again. Not only is he a scientific anomaly (which technically, most of them are, though back on Argo she would probably be considered perfectly normal), but he knows words and descriptions she hasn't even touched on in seven years of biology studies.

'And this is all perfectly natural for you, huh?'

'As natural as Stargirl stealing your shift,' Wally grins. Kara decides not to thwack him around the back of the head for it because she's actually feeling… just a little creeped out, right now.

'Eating forty burgers in a sitting? Inhaling iced Mochas? Swallowing candy floss before it can disappear? Stuff like that… it's normal to you?'

'Sure. It's easy; wanna see who can eat the most in fifty seconds, sometime?'

'…I think I'll pass.'

'Shame, you might've been a close match. Supes is totally too modest for that kind of thing.'

Kara considers and turns down another argument about their eating habits. She's still creeped out, even more so now she's had a chance to think about exactly what Wally said to her.

Because if you can go that fast, and have to eat that much, it's kind of like you're a power plant or something, burning up all this energy, and giving it out as just raw force. That's not what she and Superman do –they're just _strong_, and that's not something she's ever explained, though she thinks gravity and density are involved somehow. She never bothered with the physics behind it, she could just… pick up cars and fly, that was all. Why worry about the where's, whys and how's?out d fly, that was allnd it.

And now, looking at Wally as he goes through what's probably his third mocha, she figures that maybe he's actually thought about the _how's_ an awful lot, if not anything else. He'd have to, to know all this stuff about chemistry and how he can go as fast as he can without really understanding at all.

Flash is faster than Superman.

Well, he beat him in a race once, anyway, though she always promised herself she'd never repeat that story. 'You… don't have any idea how crazy what you just said was, do you, Flash?'

Wally looks genuinely confused again, as if…

He really _doesn't_ get it. He doesn't know how much of a _big_ thing that is. He has absolutely no idea that his biggest weakness has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he has to eat more in a week than she does in a day, and everything to do with the fact he doesn't have the slightest clue just how powerful he really is.

She knows all about Brainthor. She got the whole story from Clark afterwards. About the speed force and the running and the almost dying. And she knows how many times Wally has bugged people because he doesn't take things _seriously_.

And then there's food to think about, too. Wally's Kryptonite (or Argon) except it didn't make him feel like crap unless he was _away_ from it for too long.

What if he runs more and has to eat more? What if something gets rid of that mental block of goofiness that seems to follow him around like an aura? What if he realises how smart he is and starts to use all of that power for something more than just ramming into things really, really fast?

What happens to Wally then?

All of a sudden, the onset of jelly hips is starting to look like an appealing process. At least she'd still have super strength, and what's there to compensate for the way his body works if Wally ever stops running? He'd slump, just like what would happen to her if she ever came into contact with whatever that Argon stuff is that he seems to think might be so dangerous to her.

Wally blinks. Hard. And that's when Kara realises she's still looking at him.

'Uh… no? Are you gonna hug me or something? You look like you're gonna, and as much as I'd really, _really_ enjoy that, if Superman came in I'd probably be de—'

'Wally?'

'—ad meat, tossed from here to the other side of Apoka— Yeah?'

'Shut _up_, Wally,' Kara says. And then she slumps a little on his shoulder before he can start to protest this treatment.

She does it mostly so that he actually _will_ do what she tells him and be quiet but… it's kind of nice, anyway. The noise of the breakout hall behind them is nothing more than a soft murmuring of various people going in and out. The occasional hiss of a janitor's hoover.

And Flash is actually sitting _still_. Almost, anyway, give or take a vibration or two. She doesn't think he'll ever be still entirely. Not ever.

Maybe it's not so bad to be stuck up here on a Saturday after all.

'So Wally, what _do_ they use _argon_ in, anyway?'

* * *

**The phrase about a friendship with Stargirl spoken by Kara in this fic is gacked from an _Ace Lightning_ episode where a character Sam says exactly the same thing concerning her best (and somewhat violently inclined) friend, Heather. **


End file.
